


signs

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Skins (UK) RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-09
Updated: 2009-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries to tell herself, no she isn’t leaving it to fate; she’s just reading a sign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	signs

_Two ravens in the old oak tree / one for you and one for me._ –bloc party, signs.

At the end of the class, Lily thinks, if she were meant to see Kat again, she would. Not that she is fatalistic like that, to begin with – far from it, really. Kat’s just… really farfetched, is all. To the point that when Lily tries to remember a time in class when they’d spoken more than three words to each other, or anything more than the basic thank-you-excuse-me-see-you-around polite small talk people constantly pepper the awkward gaps with, she actually comes up with nothing.

On their last day, she catches Kat on the steps, lighting a cigarette. Lily tries to come over to say something – anything, just to make an impression, just so she would at least be remembered, actually – but then, she holds back, noticing a swarm of classmates making their way to Kat, their laughter loud, familiar, and intimidating.

So Lily thinks to herself, Next time, maybe. And then, she hastily adds, If there’s a next time, at which point she finds herself laughing. She toys with the thought briefly, then she goes ahead to flip the coin anyway. Heads she’s coming over; tails she isn’t.

When she catches it and turns it over on her other hand, it comes up tails. Lily takes a last look at Kat, who has by then begun talking and gesturing loudly, her raspy laugh floating above all the others, distinctly. As Lily walks away, she thinks, Tails means I’m not coming over, because I’m seeing her again.

(She tries to tell herself, no she isn’t leaving it to fate; she’s just reading a sign.)

*

When they see each other again, it’s a few days later, at some sort of post-grad party for the drama class some other girl is throwing. To admit, Lily’s quite surprised news about it even reached her, as the girl wasn’t exactly in her ‘circle’ at drama class, wasn’t among those she hung out with, in the first place. But then, she goes anyway, tries to tell herself, maybe her friends would be there; maybe Kat would be there, even.

Sure, she tells herself as she goes out the door, maybe she’d know someone. But then, it’s Kat she’s hoping for, mostly.

When she gets there, she sees Kat in one corner, idly chatting with a few girls Lily recognized from drama class. Kat is holding a beer in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other, and a smirk on her lips. Lily finds herself swallowing, and this is when Kat looks up and catches her staring.

Lily, of course, tries not to curse under her breath visibly as she looks away, thankful that someone with a fresh bottle of beer is coming her way to offer it. Lily smiles as she receives it, chats the girl up a little, remembers her name, finally, as she discovers that this is her party. So Lily says, “Nice party you’re throwing, thanks for the invite.”

To which the girl says, laughing kindly, “Don’t look at me, really, it’s Kat who’s been nagging about a party.”

Lily finds herself laughing, quite genuinely. “Really,” she just says.

*

Despite the fact that no one from her circle at drama class is around, Lily finds herself enjoying the party anyway, to the point that she actually asks herself why she hadn’t hung out with these people earlier.

As the night progresses, the people continue to descend into various stages of intoxication, and soon Lily finds herself with a bit too much to drink as well, and against her better judgment she agrees to sit in a circle of inebriated people surrounding an empty bottle turned to its side.

She’s not surprised, really, to find that Kat had called for it, saying, “Okay, it’s about time some people get some action around here,” by way of explanation. Kat reaches over to spin the bottle first, giggling while at it.

The air starts getting warm around Lily’s ears as she watches the bottle spin once, twice, then veer to the left slightly. It points to a boy whose name Lily has already forgotten, and she tries to look away discreetly as Kat crawls over to him and the crowd around cheers.

By the end of the night, Lily’s been kissed by everyone except Kat, and Kat’s been kissing everyone repeatedly, bottle or no – not like she couldn’t make up the rules as she goes along, and not like people generally mind, since it seems like everybody likes kissing Kat and Kat likes kissing everyone repeatedly -- except Lily, that is.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, someone says, “Okay, so are we still playing this, because I’ve kissed Kat four times already, and while I’m not really complaining…” The crowd starts laughing, each one pointing out how Kat is in fact a good kisser, and all that, and Lily has never felt this excluded, but she laughs along anyway, in the spirit of the game.

Lily’s still laughing when Kat speaks, waving a finger to shush everyone, “Listen,” she’s slurring now, hand still on the bottle. “I’m not going to stop spinning until I get Lily, okay?” Everyone just shuts up then – actually, they even seem to have stopped breathing, including Lily, who is hardly laughing anymore.

And then Kat just says, “Fuck it,” pushing the bottle to the side. She crawls over to Lily and kisses her anyway, holding Lily’s face in both hands.

At the end of the night, when Lily’s putting her coat on by the door, Kat walks over to her and offers to take her home, her voice now quiet and somewhat sober. Lily says, “That’s nice of you,” And then, “But no, thanks.” She gives Kat a smile, something she hopes would come off as genuinely nice. She is relieved when Kat smiles back in kind, now seemingly suddenly shy.

They part at the door, with Kat saying, “I guess I’ll go on ahead then,” and then, a slight gesture involving Kat’s thumb brushing against the underside of Lily’s wrist, briefly. It makes Lily’s breath catch a bit in her throat, but then she isn’t sure if Kat even noticed.

Lily takes a moment to stand by the doorway and watch Kat as she rummages through her bag on the curb, perceptibly for a cigarette. Lily contemplates coming over and perhaps sharing a smoke; maybe they could talk some more, discuss something relevant, like that kiss that still has her somewhat breathless and, to a degree, confused. In her indecision, Lily finds herself thinking: If she’s still there at the count of ten...

Lily has just passed number five in what is probably her slowest method of counting when Kat flicks off her cigarette and crosses the street. Lily sighs, thinking, Maybe I’m not coming over because we could talk some other time.

*

When they see each other again, it’s several years later, at an audition. Lily bumps into her out of carelessness; she’s reading a script while walking, after all, and Lily knows how this habit courted danger. When she looks up, she sees Kat, and then goes pale.

“I know you,” Kat is smiling now as she says it. Her hair is different now, Lily notes, swallowing, but then so is hers.

“Hey Kat,” Lily says, for the lack of an exit strategy at this point. She looks down nervously, pretending to fix her script.

“I haven’t seen you in ages,” Kat’s saying. And then, “I hope one of us gets a part, or something. Or that we both get in and then…”

The conversation dissolves into laughter and giggles soon after that, punctuated only by truncated phrases and hand gestures that they both seem to understand anyway.

*

When Lily gets the call, the first person she thinks about calling is Kat, but then, she doesn’t have her number, or at least, not yet.

*

She tries not to get too overly excited, when she sees Kat on the first cast meet; tries not to blush when Kat catches her eye and walks over, her eyes wide herself.

“Oh my god,” Kat is saying. “You’re here.”

Lily’s mouth is dry but she speaks anyway, “I’ve never been gladder, actually,” she just says.

*

The day Lily finds out she’s kissing Kat, her stomach knots itself perfectly, tightly. Sure she’d been forewarned – at the audition, they had hinted that there might be a similar development – but Kat didn’t cross her mind at all, though looking back at it, she very well should have.

“Did you know about…” Lily’s asking, sitting nervously beside Kat, one afternoon they are brought into a room to discuss the first kiss. They have been left alone to discuss in private, but then, Lily is nowhere near braver.

“Not any sooner than you, I think,” Kat’s saying. Without the alcohol, Kat seems less confident and more uncertain, and Lily begins entertaining the possibility that Kat doesn’t even remember that night she crawled over, disregarding the bottle altogether. “But then, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

Lily raises a brow briefly, tries on a smile. “Perks of the job, ain’t it,” she just says.

Kat laughs. “That’s better,” she’s saying. “And I mean, once you’ve done it, it could only get easier, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lily just says after a brief moment of consideration – was Kat referring to the one time they’d kissed, or to the first time she’s kissed anyone, in general? Shaking her head, she pushes the thought to the back of her head, telling herself, It doesn’t matter.

*

When they come around to shooting the lake scene altogether, Lily’s in pieces already. Of all things that Kat could be wrong about, Lily asks herself, Why did it have to be this? Because, to Lily’s mind, Kat really got it wrong this time – it doesn’t get easier, not even if you’d already done it once, twice. It just doesn’t, because every time she kisses Kat it always feels like she’s doing it for the first time – nervous, shaky and fumbling, and it just bothers her already, how there seems to be no mastery.

After they shoot that scene, Kat helps Lily back into her clothes. “Are you alright?” asks Kat, to which Lily only nods. Reflexively, Kat feels Lily’s forehead with her palm, then her neck with the back of her hand, as if checking for fever. “The last time I checked,” Kat’s saying, “I was the one who got hypothermic.”

They’re walking together back to the hotel, wrapped in heavy towels, when Kat asks again, “Are you really alright?” And then, after another one of Lily’s wordless nods, she asks again, “Is it me? Did I hurt you back there?”

Oh god, Lily thinks, now she’s got me cornered, like, fuck. “Kat, god, no,” Lily says, attempting to get out. “It’s just that.” A pause. “That was something, wasn’t it?”

To which Kat nods, biting her lip. “Yeah,” she says, “Yes, it really was.”

That night, when she gets home, Lily phones a boy who’s been bugging her for months and says yes without really knowing why.

*

Lily doesn’t know why she even has to tell Kat about the boy but she does so anyway, casually, while they are on a quick break and they had snuck out for a cigarette.

“Since when,” Kat’s asking, but Lily could tell how her voice has gone cold.

“A couple of months,” Lily says, taking a drag. “I just thought, maybe it was time, you know?”

Kat’s silent mostly after that, like she hasn’t been in a while when she’s with Lily on breaks like this, as she takes in drag after quiet drag. At the end of her cigarette, she drops it and stubs it out with the heel of her shoe. “Well, I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m kissing you so much, then?” she just says, before walking back in.

*

Soon, Lily finds herself tossing more coins, unable to sleep at night. Heads, it’s him. Tails, it’s Kat. Over and over, she keeps getting tails and she begins to wonder whether the coin is some sort of fraud. (Or maybe, she tells herself, I only see what I want to.)

*

When the season ends, somebody calls out for a party, and as expected, it’s Kat. Who else, Lily thinks to herself, suppressing a smile at the invite, Of course, it’s Kat.

There is no need to toss a coin this time; of course she is going, and she does. At some point, Kat politely asks, “Are you taking him with you?”

“Should I?” Lily asks back. To which Kat shrugs nonchalantly, as if to say, Go damn ahead, I don’t care.

Lily comes to the party solo. Kaya’s there with Jack and Luke and Ollie and they all come to greet Lily at the door with beer. Someone tells her Merve is at the back mixing something with Lisa. Lily’s about to ask about Kat when she spots her near the window, talking with a girl Lily hasn’t seen anywhere before; Lily squirms lightly at how close they were talking to each other.

After a while, Luke takes Lily by the wrist and drags her into a corner. “Are you alright?” he’s asking, and apparently, Lily’s disposition these days makes her rather prone to this question. When she looks at Luke finally, he’s looking at the general direction of Kat and the girl. “Look,” he says, “I don’t know what it is between the two of you, but I have a feeling you have to talk.”

At some point in the party, Kat catches her eye briefly and Lily tries her best not to look away, waiting for a sign that Kat would be open at least to conversation, or, perhaps, for the slightest smile, at the very least. Kat gives away none, and Lily watches as Kat shifts her eyes back to the girl, a hand lightly stroking the girl’s shoulder.

*

When Lily’s had enough, she dials the boy’s number and asks him to get her out of there. He comes around in his black Volvo in half an hour, and Lily starts saying her goodbyes. “It’s going to be a long break,” she’s saying as she’s hugging everyone; she’s the first one to bail, and suddenly everyone’s getting a bit teary, with Ollie in the lead. “But then I’d see you soon, won’t I?” Jack and Luke each give her a high five; Merve and the rest give her a hug, with the expected exception of Kat, of course.

When Lily asks about Kat, Kaya says she’s in the kitchen with Meg. “Maybe we should call them,” says Kaya. Lily shakes her head, looks over her shoulder and motions for the boy to wait, and then she steps back into the house, heading for the kitchen.

Lily peeks in, slowly, calling out for Meg. “I’m going now,” she says. When she finally gets a clearer view of what’s happening in there, she sees Meg rubbing Kat’s back, as Kat is doubled over by the sink. Lily gasps, a little, hand covering her mouth. “Oh.”

Meg mouths something like, “Help,” shaking her head in disapproval at her sister. Lily walks over and runs her hand along Kat’s back as well.

“Meg,” Kat’s calling out, her voice bouncing off the steel sink. Meg stops rubbing and promptly moves, understanding perfectly.

*

When Kat’s done, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and then proceeds to open the faucet. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m feeling better now.” She splashes water on her face and Lily reaches over to the table for a napkin.

“That’s nice to know,” Lily just says. “Guess you’d have to pull back a little on the alcohol now, yeah?”

Despite her situation, Kat laughs, and for a short while, Lily finds herself laughing along, though for Lily it’s mostly for the sake of sharing one last round of laughter, however brief.

“Well, I guess, for the time being, yeah,” Kat says. When she turns around and faces Lily, Lily sees how Kat’s mascara has run.

“Oh,” Lily says, unable to stop herself from tracing the smudge lightly with her thumb. “Why so?”

Kat shrugs. “I don’t know.” She breathes in and for a while, Lily is worried she would start crying as well. “I don’t know,” Kat says again, her voice now shaking.

From a far, Lily hears an engine starting, and Merve comes into the kitchen with a knock. “Lily, he wants to know if you’re done?”

Lily bites down on her lower lip hard, chewing on it for a while and marveling at the various layers of meaning certain words could have when strung together and thrown about in certain situations. Lily looks at Kat, who gives her this pleading look.

“We’re fucked,” she whispers to Kat, and at this point Kat starts crying and nodding and wiping her tears again with her hands.

“Yes we are,” Kat’s saying. “Yes, we really are.”

When Lily hears Jack joining Merve by the kitchen door, Lily doesn’t wait for him to say anything. She turns around and says, “Can you tell him he could leave without me?”

*

They wait for sunrise seated on the kitchen floor, side by side, saying nothing; Lily’s hand on Kat’s on the floor between them.

Sometime before daybreak, Lily asks Kat what to do next.

“Well,” Kat says, voice no more than a hoarse whisper by now. “We could toss a coin, if you want, and see how it goes from there?”

Lily only grips Kat's hand tighter as she laughs - at this ending, at the signs, at everything. #

**Author's Note:**

>  _I see signs now, all the time._ Title is from Bloc Party, “Signs.” This is where I say none of this is true, and that I have taken a lot of liberty with a lot of things, so really, no offense intended, because hey, I adore you. And, also, new at this, and I just want to say I bow before the magnificent skins rpfs that have come before mine. (bows)


End file.
